Next time you're pulling together a chart, be it for a report, infographic, or presentation, run it against Nathan Yau's 7 Rules for Charts & Graphs and see how it stacks up before you put it in front of hundreds or millions of viewers.

Charts and graphs have found their way into news, presentations, and comics with users from art to design to statistics. The design principles for these data graphics will vary depending on what you're using it for. Making something for a presentation? You'll want to keep it extremely simple and avoid using a lot of text. Designing a graphic for a newspaper? You'll have to deal with size constraints and try to explain the important parts of your graphic.

However, whatever you're making your charts and graphs for, whether it be for a report, an infographic online, or a piece of data art, there are a few basic rules that you should follow.